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Open Source Software OpenOffice.org For Office Work

Everybody knows already Microsoft office, it’s a wonderful software package but also very expensive. Another option is using OpenOffice.org, this is an open source software which is all for free and has the same features as Microsoft Office. The biggest difference between those 2 software is actually the price, Microsoft Office is very expensive and OpenOffice.org is all for free.

What is OpenOffice.org?

You can compare OpenOffice.org with Microsoft Office, it’s a full and complete software package. OpenOffice.org is designed for every computer user who prefers to use Open Source software and for those who doesn’t like to spend a lot of money for the expensive Microsoft Office. Open Office is available for Windows, Mac and the Open Source operating system Linux. Open source software is made by everyone and can be used by everyone, a group of volunteers are working together to design the software. The package will be spread under a LGPL license, which means Lesser General Public License. This license is used to license free software so that it can be incorporated into both free software and proprietary software. Like other open source software is OpenOffice.org free to download and free to use.

Downloading OpenOffice.org

Openoffice.org is all free for downloading and using, so you can just go to the official website or choose one of the many mirrors for the download . It’s not necessary anymore going to torrent sites and searching for a good working software and hope to find a virus free version. Keep in mind that some sites offering the Free OpenSource.org, but once you are downloading you see a message asking you to call a number to continue the installation. After the call you will receive some messages, that money costs, and contains access codes to use OpenOffice.org. Better stop the installation and look for another platform, because OpenOffice.og is all for free.

Using OpenOffice.org

If you use Microsoft word for a long time already and you have many word files, don’t worry to think you can’t use it anymore in OpenOffice.org. All the Microsoft Office files can be read and edited with OpenOffice.org, only the old macro’s gives a problem because OpenOffice.org is using their own Macro language. When you transfer complicated files it could be happened that they look a little different compared with the original.

On the other side, it’s also possible to read OpenOffice files (ODF) in Microsoft Word. The OpenOffice Writer saves the files as ODF file, Word works use the DOC files. If you want to edit a OpenOffice Writer file in Word, choose in options Save and click Save As Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP (.doc).

OpenOffice.org has an extra feature which can make a PDF file (Adobe’s Portable Document Format) of your Word file in just one click. With OpenOffice.org 3.0 or later you can download an extension, called Sun PDF Import, that allows you to edit and save a PDF file. One advantage of a PDF file compared to a Word document is, it will look the same on every printer. A PDF file can be viewed and/or edited on all platforms.

Products of OpenOffice.org

Writer for writing your documents, similar to Microsoft Word.

Impress presentation program, similar to Powerpoint.

Draw drawing program.

Calc Spreadsheet program, similar to Excel.

Math editing and writing formulas.

Base database similar to Access.

Writer

Writer has many possibilities for creating books, reports, letters, newsletters, brochures and other documents. You can insert graphics and objects from other components into Writer documents. Writer can export files to HTML, XHTML, XML, PDF and several versions of Microsoft Word. You can also send email from Writer.

Impress

Impress provides all multimedia presentation tools, such as special effects, animation and drawing tools. It is integrated with the advanced graphics capabilities of OpenOffice.org his Draw and Math components. Slideshows can be further enhanced with Fontwork’s special effects, text, sound and video clips. Impress can open Microsoft’s PowerPoint file format and can also save your work in numerous graphics formats including Macromedia Flash (SWF).

Draw

Draw is a vector drawing tool that is able to produce everything from simple diagrams or flowcharts to 3-D artwork. It can be used to create charts that can be used in other components and you can create your own clip art and add it to the Gallery. It is possible to define your own connection points on your objects and then to connect with intelligent connections. Draw can import graphics from many common formats and save them in over 20 formats including PNG, HTML, PDF and Flash.

Calc

Calc provides many features for advanced analysis, it includes more than 300 functions for financial, statistical and mathematical operations. Calc generates 2-D and 3-D graphics, which can be added in other OpenOffice.org documents. It is also possible to open Microsoft Excel worksheets and store them back in their own xls format. Calc can export spreadsheets to PDF and HTML.

Math

Math is OpenOffice.org program for editing and writing formulas. It can make complicated formulas that contains symbols or characters which are not available in standard fonts. It will be used to make formulas in other documents, such as Writer and Impress. However, it can be used also as a standalone program. Formulas can be stored in the Mathematical Markup Language (MathML).

Base

Base provides everything you need for your everyday database work within a simple interface. You can define forms, tables, queries and reports. Managing of this database is very similar with other popular database applications. As default Base stores its data in the built-in HSQLDB relational database. Base can be linked to dBase, Microsoft Access, MySQL or Oracle, or any other ODBC or JDBC compliant database.